This Republican dominance, they say, is not because GOP-controlled state legislatures are adept at gerrymandering congressional districts (though they are). “The Democrats’ geography problem is bigger than their gerrymandering problem,” write Jowei Chen and Jonathan Rodden in a January op-ed in the New York Times. They explain that Democrats are densely concentrated in urban centers, while Republicans are spread out in more sparsely populated areas where a significant number of Democrats also live. Such a geographic distribution of voters makes it all but impossible to draw district lines that would result in a Democratic congressional majority.

Chen and Rodden go on to suggest that the only way for reformers to solve this problem is “to take more radical steps that would require a party’s seat share to approximate its vote share.” What they don’t say (but mean) is that those “radical steps” must include forcing Congress to change current federal law to require that House members be elected through a system of proportional representation—the preferred voting system in the civilized world.

A crazy idea? Not quite. The Center for Voting and Democracy, a Beltway-based nonprofit, has just such legislation in the hopper and is currently deciding which Democratic member of the House would be its most effective sponsor in 2014.

If you are a New York Times reader, you may not have heard much about “proportional representation.” The paper is no fan, these days.

In the 1870s, the Times extolled proportional representation for its small-“d” democratic virtues. That changed in 1947, when the Times decided that proportional representation, which it had previously endorsed and which New York City had enjoyed for 10 years, was not such a good thing after all. The Times urged New Yorkers to vote it out in a citywide referendum because, among other reasons, it had resulted in “seating Communists and other radicals [on the City Council] who could not, by normal majority and district voting methods, have hoped to become members.” And voters did so.

Yet in recent years, political scientists have explored the virtues of proportional representation. G. Bingham Powell Jr. of the University of Rochester has demonstrated that proportional representation is more successful than majoritarian systems—like that of the United States—at creating public policies that voters favor. Northwestern University’s David Austen-Smith has shown that Western European democracies with proportional representation have more progressive income-tax systems and less income inequality than countries with majority rule. But somehow this information has not reached the mainstream.

“It is a vicious cycle of expectations,” says Rob Richie, the executive director of the Center for Voting and Democracy. “People don’t think proportional representation is possible, so they don’t suggest that it should be done, and then because no one is talking about it, people don’t think it is possible.”

It’s clear: If we are ever to get rid of the Tea Party Congress, one of the first steps will be for small-“d” democrats of all political persuasions to begin talking about proportional representation.

People would bail out on the duopoly on both ends, right and left. Might be interesting. And just as likely might be scary.

Posted by Philo Vaihinger on 2014-03-05 14:54:04

Diebold has always had strong ties to the right, from the beginning.

Posted by 10Swords on 2014-03-04 03:21:21

Good! The Dems have become right wing light.

Posted by 10Swords on 2014-03-04 03:19:27

Clarification: I meant to say 400,000 more total Democrats than Republicans voted for each of the two houses: 2,400,000 Dems, 2,000,000 Repubs., (roughly the same for Senate).

Posted by john grant on 2014-02-23 15:39:20

More than 400,000 people voted Democrat for state House in Michigan, yet it is firmly controlled by a majority of radical Republican representatives. The same is true of the Michigan State Senate. When representative government totally MIS-represents the majority of its people, something is seriously wrong. Proportional representation is the closest we can come to one-person one-vote. The alternative to the current tyranny would seem to be armed insurrection. No justice, no peace.

Posted by john grant on 2014-02-23 15:32:34

Illinois once had a form of proportional representation in the general assembly. At that time Illinois was ranked near the top in many measures. I have never forgiven now Governor Quinn for his push to eliminate it.

Posted by modemjunkie on 2014-02-22 14:39:07

That's a bad thing?

Posted by brunssd on 2014-02-22 12:58:40

COMPUTER CHEATWhrn you vote always ask for a REVIEW.Some computers have been programmed to give x number of votes to Republicans.I'm convinced Republicans won that way in North Carolina.President of Diebold (vote counter) to Bush I Guarantee you Ohio..Kerry won by 16 in exit reviews but Bush won by 16.Diebold has since been sold to a Republican.REVIEW YOUR VOTE

Posted by clarenceswinney on 2014-02-19 10:49:29

Is this the Democrats response to Republican voter suppression? How do they expect to get the votes to make the constitutional changes that would be necessary? The problem is that many rural voters are voting against their own interests because their candidates are hand picked and funded by oligarchs like the Koch brothers and they are propagandized by the organizations like the NRA and right wing media, while the Democrats go along with Republican neoliberal policies favoring corporations and the wealthy and promoting US hegemony around the world. What is needed is a Democratic Party that gets back to its roots of defending the middle class and educating voters about what their real interests are, not playing footsie with the with elite urban interests who talk a good show in support of the common man, but vote center right to protect their stock market investments and their privileged positions in academia and the media.

Posted by Elwood Anderson on 2014-02-18 18:42:39

Absolutely and that's a good thing. It's time to end the coke-vs-pepsi undemocratic 2 ruling party system forever. The only thing worse than a 2 party system is a 1 party system.

Posted by Leif Harmsen on 2014-02-18 12:35:14

Anyone who has a problem with proportional representation has a problem with democracy.

Posted by Leif Harmsen on 2014-02-18 12:33:51

You don't want Proportional or Instant Runoff Voting. While they'll help you in the short run, in the long run they'll bring in the third parties in force. This change will undo the two-party lock and ultimately hurt the Democrats almost as bad as it will hurt the Republicans.

Posted by Ayn R. Key on 2014-02-18 10:52:02

Baloney. There is no such thing as a Tea Party Congress. The Tea party. For all the liberal idiots that don't know. Is not a Party. It is a Conservative Majority of the People-many of which are as disgusted by the Republican (croney capitalist) Establishment as much as it despises the Quasi Marxist-semi-Socialist Ideologue driven, propaganda propelled Democrats.